Growing mushrooms

Mushrooms are seemingly mysterious and are super valuable to our world. They come in all sorts of colors, sizes, shapes and textures. Different species are found throughout our planet including on land, in water, in the air, and even in plants and animals.

Mushrooms have been around since ancient civilizations and we continue to produce them and study them today. People learned how to use them for various purposes: to produce delicious foods like bread, cheese, and even beer, and they have also helped us save thousands of lives since they have helped us develop medicines.

Did you know the fungi kingdom is more similar to the animal kingdom than the plant kingdom? This is because they are eukaryotic and are not autotrophs like plants, they don’t have chlorophyll and instead, they obtain their food by decomposing matter or eating off their hosts as parasites.

In this section on mushrooms you will learn and understand:

What mushrooms are.

The benefits of mushrooms.

How to farm mushrooms’

At the bottom of the page we have included some questions to help you with your learning and please use the forum to answer the forum questions or to post questions of your own to the community learning with you.

Food for Thought

The below questions are here to help you asses your understanding of the mushroom world and to help you think critically about the concepts. Answer the questions and the comments below and use this as an opportunity to ask questions, exchange ideas, and share opinions with like minded international people and vertical farming experts.

What are the main differences between plants and mushrooms

Why are mushrooms so interesting for Vertical Farming?

What’s your favorite mushroom and why?

How would you farm mushrooms?

Zjef Van Acker

1) Plants don’t do fotosynthesis! They eat organic matter for their carbon, nitrogen and other nutrients!

2) Because the re-valorise waste! And because they need much less light than plants